Garden Grove Is Lucky to Have Perfect Cop to Get the Job Done

Cops come in all kinds. There are the trim, young Clint Eastwood types--like Lt. Kevin Raney and Sgt. Mike Handfield, who were center court at a Garden Grove police news conference Wednesday, announcing an arrest in the 1993 fatal shooting of fellow officer Howard E. Dallies Jr.

Then there are those like Boyd Underwood, leaning against a tree at the outdoor news conference, content with his role in the background. Older, slightly balding, a little large at the hips. The favorite uncle you find standing on the far end in the wedding pictures. The kind you might confess your sins to.

Raney and Handfield deserved to be front and center. Their dedicated efforts heading the task force investigating Dallies’ death have led to charges being filed against John J.C. Stephens. Stephens, 26, of Buena Park, was already in prison in a separate shooting incident.

But Underwood played a key role, and he wasn’t even getting paid. He’s a former police officer and district attorney investigator who was one of several who gave their time to the investigation without salary because they thought they were needed.

“Really, it’s something that anybody in the law enforcement community

would have done; I’d like to think so,” Underwood told me after the news conference.

Underwood, 59, who is retired but still works part time for the district attorney’s office, volunteered when the call went out shortly after Dallies was gunned down by a motorcycle rider on March 9, 1993. Underwood has stayed with the case ever since, never making more than just expenses.

Stephens was a suspect from the beginning. A bullet used in the 1993 shooting of a Santa Ana security guard matched the bullet used to kill Dallies--and Stephens was a suspect in the other shooting. But the task force kept looking elsewhere because of Stephens’ strong alibi.

For three years, that alibi witness (still unidentified) never wavered from the statement that Stephens was with him/her. Then Underwood stepped in. He became friends with that witness. Slowly, he gained the witness’ trust. Somehow, some way, Underwood convinced the witness to confide in him. The witness admitted lying. Not only that, the witness said Stephens had not arrived until much later in the night--after Dallies’ murder--and he appeared frantic. Stephens also rushed to the bathroom, the witness said, to dye his hair.

Lt. Raney said that turned the whole case around: “Once that alibi was removed, we had a clearer understanding of everything.” Stephens once again became the focus of the investigation.

So it wasn’t the tough cop Clint Eastwood style that helped break this case. Just Uncle Boyd being a shoulder to cry on.

Just doing my job, said Underwood, who isn’t comfortable with media interviews. I tried to press him about why the witness had done a turnaround for him.

Well, Underwood said, “I just treat people like people--they way they would like to be treated. Sometimes that gets results better than anything.”

Assistant Dist. Atty. Maurice L. Evans called Underwood “the perfect investigator for the role.”

Evans and Underwood worked on criminal prosecutions more than 20 years ago and have become close friends since.

“I don’t know of any investigator more respected for getting the job done,” Evans said. “That Boyd did all this on his own time says a lot about the kind of person he is.”

Underwood didn’t start out as a cop. He was a diesel mechanic on his way to becoming a railroad engineer when his family moved to California from the Midwest. Underwood switched gears and became an Anaheim police officer in 1964. In the next nine years he took on just about every job it had, winding up in homicide investigations. In 1972, he switched to the district attorney’s office, where he was an investigator the next 22 years. In the latter part of his career he was considered one of its top homicide investigators, Evans said.

Underwood retired from full-time duty three years ago, but Evans and others convinced him to come back to work part time.

Helping out Garden Grove police with the Dallies investigation, Underwood said, has been a “very satisfying experience” as his law enforcement career winds down.

“The people in the Garden Grove Police Department are outstanding,” he said. “I think most of us were optimistic from the beginning that we were going to get a break in this case. If I had any role in that, well, I’m just glad I could be of help.”

But Underwood echoed what I’m sure many others at that news conference must have thought too: “We’re a step closer,” he said. “But that’s all. There’s still a long way to go before this thing is over.”

Wrap-Up: In an earlier column, I told you that Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Jacobs, who prosecuted death row inmate Tommy Thompson, had chosen not to attend Thompson’s scheduled Aug. 5 execution. Jacobs told me in his forthright style that he had done his job and he trusted the warden to know how to do his.

Jacobs has since changed his mind. Now he says he will attend Thompson’s execution at San Quentin state prison.

Jacobs did not want to publicly discuss his reasons, except to say he “wants to see it through” and that he changed his mind after discussions with others whose opinion he respects.

Jacobs, by the way, has been put in charge of taking a look at a lot of old rape/slaying cases to see if charges might be filed in some of them now that DNA evidence can be a factor. Jacobs has got some pretty good help on the job: His chief investigator is Boyd Underwood.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823, by fax at (714) 966-7711 or by e-mail at jerry.hicks@latimes.com.